outguns the rebels. raining scuds on to civilians in aleppo on friday.withrussiaarmingassad, rebel leaders threatened to boycott a team meeting with kerry later this week to protest the u.s. and europe's refusal to arm them. >> at this stage, isn't it time to revisit that policy? >> with a new secretary of state at a beginning moment of the second term of president obama, when he himself has expressed concerns about it, this moment is ripe for us to be considering what more we can do. >> reporter: as a senator, kerry said military aid should be considered. and hillary clinton and leon panetta both recommended arming and training some rebel units. but president obama rejected that proposal last year. fearing weapons would get into the hands of al qaeda supporters. but today, facing rebel pressure, kerry hinted at a policy shift. >> we are determined that the syrian opposition is not going to be dangling in the wind, wondering where the support is or if it's coming. >> reporter: before leaving london, kerry called a key opposition leader and talked him into showing up for the meeting

ofrussiathatmakes for the most contaminated nuclear site on the planet. >> wow. >> at the time of sequester, taxpayers spend $2 billion per year just maintaining the cleanup operation. then it was revealed that hundreds of gallons of high-level toxic waste have been leaking over the last several years right into the ground. eventually into the ground water and maybe the columbia river. >> you say the most contaminated site in the world behind places in russia. who's at risk? >> we have to realize that nuclear waste is a toxic witch's brew of chemicals, the most dangerous known to science. plutonium, enriched uranium, nitric acid solvents all mixed in a liquid vat. and we have 56 million gallons worth of this toxic stuff. to get this into perspective, to get your head around this imagine 80 olympic-sized swimming pools containing the most toxic substance known to science of which two olympic-size swimming pools have leaked right into the ground and eventually into the water table and, perhaps, even into people's drinking water. >> what are you going to do? >> we

disasters, especially in his first meetingwithrussia. >>we want to reset -- >> reporter: like his predecessor infamous misspelled reset button. >> we worked hard to get the right russian word. >> you got it wrong. >> reporter: kerry's photo op of the russian foreign minister was over in a minute. they seemed eager to get down to business. but when the cameras left kerry and sergei spent two hours together nearly half of which was devoted syria. >>> let's see if anything positive emerged from that meeting. we'll stay in touch with jill dougherty. let's get back to our top story. three days left to see if those forced spending cuts, $85 billion over the next seven months go into effect. our chief political analyst has been talking to senior administration officials. is there any progress being made at all to avert those cuts between now and friday? >> sure doesn't seem so. the senior administration officials i spoke with seem completely dug in on this. they are not having meetings with the house speaker or the republican leader in the senate. they told me that they believe that poli